The Concept of Personal Initiative: An Overview of ...

1 The Concept of Personal Initiative: An Overview of Validity StudiesDoris Fay and Michael FreseDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of GiessenConstruct validity of an interview measure of Personal initiative (PI) is examined intwo parts. The first part assembles the results from 11 samples, showing that PI ismeaningfully related to a nomological network of variables, based on environmentalsupports; knowledge, skills, and cognitive abilities; personality variables and orienta-tions; and behavior and performance, confirming our hypotheses. In the second part,the article presents a new analysis that looks at the influence of motivational parame-ters (control aspiration, self-efficacy, and change orientation) and cognitive ability onPI within a longitudinal study in East initiative (PI) can be defined as a behavior syndrome that results in an in-dividual taking an active and self-starting approach to work goals and tasks and per-sisting in overcoming barriers and setbacks (cf.)

2 Frese, Fay, Hilburger, Leng, & Tag,1997; Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996). One of the consequences of such anactive approach is that the environment is changed by the individual (if ever soslightly). This is in contrast to a passive approach, which is characterized by doingwhat one is told to do, giving up in the face of difficulties, and reacting to environ-mental demands. PI is an important Concept both for practical and theoretical rea-sons. Practically, PI has been used, for example, in assessment centers. PI will be-come more important in the future because future work places will require a highdegree of self-reliance (Frese, 1997).

3 Companies are interested in PI because it in-creases organizational and individual purpose of this article is to summarize the construct validity evidence onPI. Part of this evidence has been published in various articles (some of it only inGerman). Another part of the material has not been published yet and, therefore, ispresented here for the first PERFORMANCE,14(1), 97 124 Copyright 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, for reprints should be sent to Doris Fay, Department of Psychology, University of Giessen,Otto Behaghel Str 10F, 35394 Giessen, Germany. E-mail: Concept OF Personal INITIATIVEP ersonal initiative (PI) uses an active approach that is characterized by its self-start-ing and proactive nature and by overcoming difficulties that arise in the pursuit of that the goals are not given or assigned by someone else,but that the person himself or herself develops these goals.

4 Some jobs are associ-ated with very broad work goals; for example, managers have broad goals such as toenhance departmental effectiveness. This seems to make own-goal developmentimpossible, because any action the manager takes can be traced back to the broadgoal. Therefore, we conceptualize self-starting to mean that there is a great psycho-logical distance from some path taken as part of PI and the normal path (Fay &Frese, 2000). If a manager pursues a strategy to enhance effectiveness that is obvi-ous, that is not difficult to do, about which other managers also talk, or about whichis discussed in business publications, the psychological distance is small, and theactions are not PI.

5 If the strategy was suggested from one of the rank-and-file work-ers, this would imply a high psychological distance and we would consider it to bePI. Likewise, if the manager assumes a strategy that is not in the air, or is unusualfor his or her company, then there is a high psychological distance and we wouldconsider it to be future demands and preparing for them or preventing problems aretypical goals of initiative . Hence, PI is aproactiveaction. This proactive approachimplies that one attempts to get feedback, develops signals that signify futureproblems, and develops plans to actively prevent these problems from of long-term goals often leads to new problems, barriers, andsetbacks.

6 Because new suggestions for work improvement, new procedures to dothings, and so on have not been tried before, one will experience difficulties. Forexample, the supervisor may not like the new idea, or a new work procedure can-not be performed correctly in the beginning. If one does not overcome these diffi-culties or gives up quickly in the face of barriers, there is no initiative . initiative ,therefore, implies that one will deal with these obstacles actively is a self-starting action that exceeds the work role. It often implies a cer-tain rebellious element toward the supervisor.

7 However, in the long run PI mustbe in accordance with overall organizational goals. Actions that lack a pro-companyorientation are not of PIWe have attempted to measure PI on several levels, from several sources, and withseveral methods. We also wanted to develop behavioral measures of PI, as well as aquestionnaire scale that is more related to a personality construct of PI. To obtainbehavioral measures, we decided to develop interview-based procedures that relateto the aspects of PI discussed AND FRESEFive scales (described in the following) were assessed within a structured inter-view (more details and the item wording are given in Frese et al.)

8 , 1997, Frese et al., interviewer rated this interview, and a second rater also rated the inter-view content based on a protocol (with good interrater reliabilities; cf. Frese et al.,1997).General initiative at workcaptures past initiative taken at work. The self-start-ing nature of these PI behaviors stood in the foreground of this measure. Directquestions on past initiative were asked, for example, During the last two years,did you submit suggestions to improve work? The interviewers then probed intothe nature of the suggestion and whether it had been developed by the person him-self or herself or by other people and whether it was self-started.

9 We also askedwhether suggestions were often presented by colleagues to understand the psy-chological distance discussed previously. The raters then coded the behavior onwhether it presented extra energy or new ideas that went beyond expected behav-ior in this disadvantage of the general initiative at work measure is that it has to relyon past events that are affected by memory effects. Therefore, we also developed aset of measures that pertain to present job behavior and to behavior that can reli-ably be measured within the initiativemeasured interview-ees present participation in continuing work-related education and future plans todo so.

10 Only present behavior that was not triggered by company demands wascounted as education initiative . The coding was based on what the intervieweeshad planned and whether it was based on concrete plans ( , if the person knewwhich course to attend or had already registered).Overcoming barriersis a measure of persistence in pursuit of a goal. This mea-sure was inspired by the situational interview (Latham & Saari, 1984). The partici-pants were asked to imagine having to deal with a certain problem, for example, Pretend for a moment that you work as a blue-collar worker on a machine and thismachine breaks down.